point of strain, observed blood on some rumpled sheets, a rusty blot. The phar- macist, who lived above the clinic, had come down wearing a loincloth and un- dershirt. He seemed perfectlyunflustered, if anything slightly cross at having been disturbed. "Put them on those two beds." "As salaam aleikum, Dr. Sahib," said Nawab, who felt as if he were speaking to someone very far away. The pharma- cist seemed an immensely grave and im- portant man, and Nawab spoke to him formally. 'What happened, Nawab?" "He tried to snatch my motorbike, but I didn't let him." The pharmacist pulled off Nawab's shalwar, got a rag, and washed away the blood, then poked around quite roughly, while N awab held the sides of the bed and willed himself not to scream. "You'll live," he said. ''You're a lucky man. The bullets all went low." " D ' d ' h . " 1 It It... The pharmacist dabbed with the rag. "N ot even that, thank God." The robber must have been hit in the lung, for he kept breathing up blood. ''You won't need to bother taking this one to the police," the pharmacist said. " H ' d d " es a ea man. "Please," the robber begged, trying to raise himself up. "Have mercy, save me. I'm a human being also." The pharmacist went into the office next door and wrote the names of drugs on a pad, sending the villager's son to a dispenser in the next street. 'Wake him and tell him it's Nawabdin the electrician. Tell him I'll make sure he th " gets e money. Nawab looked over at the robber for the first time. There was blood on his pillow, and he kept snuffling, as if he needed to blow his nose. His thin and very long neck hung crookedly on his shoulder, as if out of joint. He was older than Nawab had thought, not a boy, dark-skinned, with sunken eyes and protruding yellow smoker's teeth, which showed whenever he twitched for breath. "I did you wrong," the robber said weakly. "I know that. You don't know my life, just as I don't know yours. Even I don't know what brought me here. Maybe you're a poor man, but I'm much poorer than you. My mother is old and blind, in the slums outside Multan. Make them fix me, ask them to and they'll do it." He began to cry, not wip- ing away the tears, which drew lines on his dark face. "Go to hell," N awab said, turning away. "Men like you are good at confes- sions. My children would have begged in h " t e streets. The robber lay heaving, moving his fingers by his sides. The pharmacist seemed to have gone away somewhere. "They just said that I'm dying. F or- give me for what I did. I was brought up with kicks and slaps and never enough to eat. I've never had anything of my own, no land, no house, no wife, no money, never, nothing. I slept for years on the railway-station platform in Multan. My mother's blessing on you. Give me your blessing, don't let me die unforgiven." He began snuffling and coughing even more, and then started hiccupping. Now the disinfectant smelled strong and good to Nawab. The floor seemed to shine. The world around him expanded. "N ever. I won't forgive you. You had your life, I had mine. At every step of the road I went the right way and you the wrong. Look at you now, with bub- bles of blood stuck in the corner of your lips. Do you think this isn't a judgment? My wife and children would have wept all their lives, and you would have sold my motorbike to pay for six unlucky hands of cards and a few bottles of poi- son home brew. If you weren't lying here now, you would already be in one of the gambling camps along the . " rIver. The man said, "Please, please, please," more softly each time, and then he stared up at the ceiling. "It's not true," he whispered. After a few minutes, he convulsed and died. The pharmacist, who had come back in by then and was cleaning N awab' s wounds, did nothing to help him. Yet Nawab's mind caught at this, at the man's words and his death, like a bird hopping around some bright ob- ject, meaning to peck at it. And then he didn't. 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